Chapter 6

3
Pages

77
Views

Unlock Document

School

University of Toronto Scarborough

Department

Anthropology

Course

ANTB14H3

Professor

Michael Schillaci

Semester

Winter

Description

Chapter 6: Primate Mating Systems Week 5 Darwin- complex adaptations exist because they involved step by step by natural selection Mating systems- way animals find mated and care for offspring o Play a crucial role in understanding of primate societies Understanding diverse reproductive strategies of nonhuman primates illuminates human evolution because we share many elements of our reproductive physiology with other species of primates The language of adaptive explanations Evolutionary biology-strategy: behavioural mechanisms that lead to particular courses of behaviour in particular functional contexts, such as foragingreproduction o Product of natural selection acting on individuals to shape motivations, reactions, preferences, capacities and choices that influence behaviours o Strategies that led to greater reproductive success in ancestral populations have been favoured by natural selection and represent adaptations Cost and benefit: effect of particular behavioural strategies on reproductive success The evolution of reproductive strategies Primate females always provide lots of care for their young, but males do so in only few species Males do not care for their offspring: 1. When they can easily use their resources to acquire many additional matings or 2. When caring for their offspring would not appreciably increase the offsprings fitness Natural selection will favour individuals that allocate effort among these competing demands so as to maximize number of surviving offspring that they produce Because time, energy and resources are always limited, males that devote more effort to caring for o